Friday, April 18, 2008

Doing Algebra

I’m doing quite a bit of algebra these days, helping our young mathematician solve homework problems. I last took algebra from Mr. Webb way back in the year 19-mumble-mumble, when President Nixon was still lovingly adding names to his enemies list. My strongest memory from Mr. Webb’s class was that he never learned his students’ names.  He called everyone Babe. No matter who you were, he’d say, “Babe, put the next problem on the board. Thanks, Babe.” But he must have been a pretty good teacher, because after a quick refresher I can solve a basic problem.  And so for the moment I still have a role to play in our teen’s life.

That role is called factoring. You know: through factoring, 4x + 4 becomes 4 times (x + 1).  This week I relearned how to factor the difference of two squares: x² - 16y², that sort of thing. Silly me, I thought the difference of two squares surely must be the traits that allow a person to distinguish one math teacher from another. Now you may wonder if I was one of those kids in the back row who asked Mr. Webb why algebra was worth learning. Well, I’m not going to tell you. I will admit that a “why is this worth learning” gene has been passed on to the next generation of our little clan.

Anyway, as we work on algebra, a pattern emerges. I check the work and sometimes I say, this solution has an error.  Maybe our scholar doesn’t see it, and points to a similar solution in the class notes, and starts simmering.  A little steam rises from the stylish young hair style. Explain the steps to me, I say. More pointing. Tell me how it’s supposed to work, I say. Don’t give up.

Pretty soon the sheet is covered with x to the 2nds and y’s to the 4th and eraser crumbs. Each correction floats up out of the smudge of previous work.  I start to pity the weary eyes of the math teacher.  Maybe Mr. Webb called us all Babe because our homework had made him blind.

Eventually, if neither of us surrenders, we have the basic method in place, something you could memorize if you don’t mind not really knowing what you’re doing.  Now, I say, tell me why this method works.  More steam, more pointing, perhaps, but we talk through the reason, and then we have a method that we both understand.  The next few problems solidify what we’ve learned.

Then the textbook switches to a new kind of problem, and we’re back to the eraser crumbs and smudges. Explain how it works, I say. Explain why. And we pick up speed.  While my offspring learns algebra, I’m constructing an obvious little theory about learning. I see learning as a progression from rote memory to knowing how and onto knowing why, with the real power accumulating fast in the last stage, when you know why.  That’s cool, as we used to say in Nixon’s day, when we weren’t busy questioning authority.

I saw in the New York Times that an ancient Greek technical manuscript was recently translated, and there, scrawled like graffiti in the margin of the text, was the same question young people are still asking today: “Why is this worth learning?” Is there a good answer to that question?  Most people would probably say that you take algebra in order to go to college and get yourself a place in the middle class.  For some people, it’s a step toward a math-oriented career. Some people find mathematics beautiful. Thanks to my recent experience, I have a new answer to the age-old question. Why is algebra worth learning?  So that later on you can help your own kids learn algebra, and eventually they’ll do the same for their kids. It’s the great cycle of life.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on April 18, 2008
Customs & Rituals • Education • Family & Friends • Permalink • Printer Friendly

Friday, April 11, 2008

Skirting the Issue

Well, given my title, you may think I’ll make a political point about primary candidates “skirting” issues, but I submit to you, my friends, that what I have to say may be even more pressing to 51 % the population right now.  Yes: I’m talking swimsuits.  I’m talking women having to buy them.  And I’m talking:  Is this the year to go skirted?

You women know just what I mean.  And, men?  You could go ahead and rattle the newspapers now, or rustle up a tasty snack, because – and don’t take this the wrong way – you’re pretty much totally clueless about what it’s like for women to buy a swimsuit.  For men, buying a swimsuit goes something like: “Uh .. Sure, the Large’ll be fine. No need to try ‘em on. I’ll get the blue trunks with pockets.” Pockets! When women’s swimsuits are made with pockets, Obama and Clinton will be cozily sharing a ticket, and so will McCain and, oh, let’s say Pelosi.  Ain’t. Gonna. Happen, folks.

The madness of swimsuits is that it means going out in public – in the unforgiving glare of summer’s sun – wearing far less than we do to bed with our longtime lovers.  Bright, wonderful women I know who would never purchase skimpy Victoria’s Secret lingerie for display in the boudoir nevertheless buckle down and buy what is essentially underwear meant to be seen by total strangers.

Now, Land’s End and other sensible clothiers exploit this anxiety brilliantly to play on both the intelligence and self-loathing of grown-up women. For one thing, you practically have to have your Ph.D. in Swimsuit-ology to wade through the thick catalogues hitting mailboxes now, with bold headlines promising “Flattering Solutions” – implying every body is a problem. In fact, you can shop by “anxiety zones,” choosing which body part you think most needs to be slimmed, supported, disguised, and, somehow, covered, all while revealing more than most of us care to face in full-length mirrors, fully clothed.

These catalogues appeal to the analytic bent of smart women who are plenty able to critique culture and make empowering decisions about their self-worth, but the billions of choices and categories and numerical charts seem designed to break us down until we might as well be insecure high-schoolers poring over the prom issue of Seventeen magazine. Do you want a soft cup bra? Shelf bra? Underwire?  There are three leg hole styles to choose from, and a slew of necklines and torso lengths, and now the invention of Tankinis means there’s one more category between bikinis and tanks, not to mention the special pages of “slimsuits” designed to squeeze perfectly nice people into a tube taking up 10 pounds less space.  Don’t get me started on the pages of cover ups we’re then meant to buy, to further disguise what we’ve shoved into our suits.

And then, there’s the über-decision: Is this the year to go skirted?  Ask your women friends, and you can spark quite a spirited discussion by asking if going skirted is a sign of giving in, or of being so hip you can pull off a retro look without impersonating those scary old ladies at the pools of our youth in swim-dress dreadfuls worn with chin-strapped rubber caps.  Perhaps the current Broadway revival of South Pacific, featuring mid-century swimwear, will help make it hip to be square, and not the first wobbling step toward old-lady-dom.

Now, I am not the first person to wonder if cultivating body anxiety among women is a key way our energies are turned debilitatingly inward, rather than outward into political organizing, cancer-curing, Green-technology engineering, and the millions of other directions women could be funneling power. Are swimsuit catalogues part of a plot to keep women in our place – simultaneously on display in the public eye, but out of the power of the public sphere?

Until we bring about the revolution, my sisters, let’s be inspired by the beer-bellied dude on the beach in baggy trunks, who gives no thought to whether the keys in his pockets make his bulges even bulgier.  Taking up space, and feeling at home in our skin, is a political issue; don’t skirt it.  Let’s face it, head-on. I hope to see you on the shores of Lake Michigan this summer, letting freedom swing!

Broadcast by April Lidinsky on April 11, 2008
Customs & Rituals • Sports & Recreation • Women & Men • Permalink • Printer Friendly

Friday, April 04, 2008

Baby, It’s Cold Inside

Yes, I know that Spring is trying to come to Michiana.  But as I write this it’s snowing fiercely and I’ve never seen such large snowflakes in my life.  Ha, proof that Al Gore is all wet!  In any case, I hope you can stop hoping for Spring for an hour or so and instead come to the IUSB library to see an astonishing photo exhibit called “The Last Iceberg” that is bone-chilling cold.  It’s by Camille Seaman, and her work is just plain, flat-out amazing.  Really, words don’t do justice to the haunting images that she’s created, documenting the changing landscapes in the North and South Poles.  I recommend that you first check out her snazzy website—camilleseaman.com—to get a flavor of what she’s achieved in these very cold places.  And if her photos don’t knock you out and give you frostbite, then you are very jaded person....or a global warming nut-job.

Now, I had no idea who Camille was when I stumbled upon her work earlier this winter in Washington, D. C., but I sure did once I gazed upon her photographs.  I left the exhibit a changed man, which is, I guess, the point of art.  I then got it into my head that we here in Michiana had to see these photos too.  So, I contacted her and amazingly she agreed to let our little school showcase her work.  Let me emphasize one small point: she is not some garden-variety photographer.  She’s the real deal.  And so here we are, lucky Hoosiers, to have this artist’s vision of a world that is melting all around us.

After you see these photos you will probably wonder what we can do to prevent every single last iceberg from melting away and becoming history.  Here, I confess, I have no idea.  I’ve heard it all before: lower carbon footprints, drive hybrids, recycle with abandon, hate the oil companies, love to read in the dark, you name it.  And you know what: none of this is going to bring back these icebergs or grow new ones or do anything to stop our relentless destruction of the earth, let alone quell the naysayers on global warming.  I recently heard on NPR that an iceberg the size of Connecticut just broke apart and is melting away.  Now, I’ve been in Connecticut many times and I still can’t wrap my head around this little fun fact.  What can possibly be the size of a state?  Camille’s photos are very large, but even they aren’t that big.  Some of her photos, though, have a science fiction-like quality to them; they just don’t look as if they were taken on our little planet.  One of my favorites in this sci-fi genre is of an iceberg that looks a great deal like the Borg spaceship that terrorized Captain Jean Luc Picard on “Star Trek.” So perhaps we need Camille’s surreal imagery to help us understand our world today.

Upon reflection, these photographs got me thinking about the nature of history.  I’m sorry to add to your everyday woe, but if I’ve learned anything from studying history it’s that we never learn from the past.  We are always reinventing the wheel, always making war, always finding ways to blame others for our own predicaments.  We want more, whatever someone else has, whatever is around the bend.  And I guess the logic of this wanting is watching icebergs disappear.  I imagine that Camille believes her art might spur people to act.  Her art is a tonic of sorts from this insatiable desire of wanting.  I hope she’s right and that I’m wrong.  Anyway, come to IUSB and check out these icebergs.  And when you’re up on the fifth floor of the library make sure you look out over the St. Joe River and see the new dorms that are being built with the help of your tax dollars and carbon footprints.  These dorms will be a great addition to our university and to our neighborhood.  I just hope they built them far enough from the river, because when an iceberg the size of Connecticut melts I have a feeling that everyone is eventually going to get wet.

Broadcast by Jonathan Nashel on April 04, 2008
Arts & Entertainment • Nature & Outdoors • News & Editorial • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe

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April Lidinsky -- Skirting the Issue / More essays by April

Jonathan Nashel -- Baby, It’s Cold Inside / More essays by Jonathan

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